Posts Tagged ‘
popularity ’

Kids who are popular and “cool” in middle school do not necessarily achieve as much success by age 23 as their less popular peers, according to a new study published in the journal Child Development. More from CNN on what researchers call the “revenge of the nerds” effect:

Remember the kids who tried so hard to be cool — the ones who had boyfriends or girlfriends before everyone else, started partying earlier than most other kids their age and made a point of moving with the physically attractive crowd? Well, coolness at 13 does not translate into success by age 23, according to the study by researchers at the University of Virginia published in the journal Child Development.

Those cool kids were more likely to have bigger troubles later in life, according to research released Thursday, which was conducted over a 10-year span. As young adults, they were using 40% more drugs and alcohol than the “not so cool” kidsand were 22% more likely to be running into troubles with the law.

When their social competence as adultswas quantified (which included how well they got along with friends, acquaintances and romantic partners), the teens considered cool in middle school received ratings that were 24% lower than their less cool peers.

“Long term, we call it the high school reunion effect,” said Joseph Allen, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study.

“You see the person who was cool … did exciting things that were intimidating and seemed glamorous at the time and then five or 10 years later, they are working in a menial job and have poor relationships and such, and the other kid who was quiet and had good friends but didn’t really attract much attention and was a little intimidated is doing great.”

Middle- and high-school students who drink alcohol may actually be getting a social payoff for their behavior in the form of a greater number of friends, according to a new study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. Reuters has more:

Previous studies have found friend groups can influence choices about alcohol, but haven’t looked at the possible social payoffs of drinking.

“There has not been much data to support that drinking among teenagers directly leads to higher popularity and more friendships,” said Peter Delany. He is the director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality in Rockville, Maryland.

Delany was not part of the study team, which was led by Mir M. Ali, also from SAMHSA.

“The fact remains that underage drinking is linked to a long list of adverse health and behavioral consequences, including the deaths of thousands of adolescents and young adults each year,” Delany told Reuters Health in an email.

Ali and colleagues analyzed data from a national study of 7th through 12th graders from 132 schools who were surveyed in 1994. The survey included a variety of questions on drinking and substance use, number of friends, friends of friends, home life and other factors.

Teens who reported occasional drinking and getting drunk tended to have higher “social connectedness” than their abstaining peers. That was especially true for white students.

Getting drunk seemed to be more important for popularity than just drinking in general. Kids who drank at all reported having an extra half a friend, on average, and those who got drunk reported one additional friend compared to non-drinkers.

The findings “provide new evidence on the motivation behind adolescent drinking,” the researchers wrote in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

The researchers added that healthy behaviors, like participating in sports, are also linked with better social connectedness.

Girls as young as 6 years old show self-sexualizing attitudes that suggest they identify themselves in terms of “sexiness,” a new study published in the journal Sex Roles has found. From MSNBC.com:

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with.

Across-the-board, girls chose the “sexy” doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.

“It’s very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages,” explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self.

Follow Parents

Subscribe to Email

Enter your email address to receive a daily digest email of posts from this blog.

Your email:

About Parents News Now

At Parents.com, our editors are focused on bringing you the latest news that moms and dads should know. Parents News Now is dedicated to current news related to all aspects of parenting, such as updated research on kids health and development, trending topics related to moms and dads, and other hot-button headlines about safety, education, and families. Our editors will make sure to parse through tough studies so you don't have to, and present important facts in a clear and concise way.